Midweek Time Lapse: Civil War vets recall their worst meals; what was yours?

Wednesday

May 14, 2014 at 12:01 AM

A century ago, the Journal asked Civil War veterans what their worst wartime meal had been, and published their recollections on May 24, 1914. We're asking today's vets the same question: Please serve up your worst food memories in comments.

By Sheila Lennon

A century ago, on May 24, 1914, the Journal asked Providence veterans what their worst wartime meals had been. Maj. George Bliss, a POW in Richmond's Libby Prison, named dried cowpeas with a live bug in each.

"Salt junk, 'horse,' they called it and hardtack that did not belie its name," said Henry M. Chase of the Seventh Rhode Island Cavalry. "I chawed away at my junk of beef, which was about as big as a closed fist, failed to separate a crumb of it, couldn't cut it with my knife but finally made a breach in the lump when I put it on a cobblestone and hammered it almost flat with another stone."

A daily ration of raw potatoes, said Stephen J. West of 7 D Street, "who went to the front with the Fourteenth United States Regiment of colored troops."

A sandwich of cold, raw salt pork, molasses and hardtack, said Col. Philip S. Chase, who served with Gen. Burnside off Hatteras. He said he had been so hungry it was delicious.

How about "crumbs of hardtack cemented together by the fat of a piece of candle"? "Sweet? There was not a crumb wasted," said Peter Whelan, a member of the Second Rhode Island Regiment.

Read all the responses by clicking on the story above to open it at a legible size. The illustrations are by the Journal's renowned cartoonist Milton R. Halladay.

Your turn: If you're a vet, what was your worst wartime meal? We suspect some who served in more exotic locales have some nasty culinary tales to tell. Please add your memory -- and try to describe how it tasted -- in comments below.

Hardtack

[hardtack]

Hardtack -- a heavy unleavened biscuit of flour and water, maybe with salt -- is uncommonly hard. G.H. Bent Co. of Milton, Mass., sold hardtack crackers to the Union army, and still sells them to Civil War-re-enactors who replicate every detail of the battlefield down to the food in their pockets.

Or you can make your own. From The American Table, here's the recipe, along with the caveat, "do watch your teeth":

2 cups flour1/2 tablespoon salt (optional)1/2 to 3/4 cup water

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Combine flour with salt in a mixing bowl. Add water and mix with hands until the dough comes together. Roll out on a table to about 1/3 inch thickness. Use a knife to cut 3×3 squares from the dough. Place on baking sheet, and use a dowel to make 16 evenly-spaced holes in each square. Bake for at least four hours, turning over once half-way through baking. Cool on a rack in a dry room.

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